Dr. Sanjay Prasad is the Founder and CEO of SurgiPrice located in Rockville, Maryland. They started in 2007 as a marketplace for patients to become empowered in coming up with an informed decision. By doing so, patients are empowered by providing them with data on quality, parameters, past experiences and outcomes that a certain surgeon has. They also provide patients with a multiple bundled bids from the company’s network of elite surgeons and these transparencies aid patients in opting for a more experienced surgeon at an affordable and reasonable cost. Discover more how Dr. Prasad and his team are very much passionate and committed in providing excellent patient care and helping them attain the value that they deserve.

This interview was recorded at the World Medical Tourism Congress in Washington D.C. where John was a featured speaker in September 2014.

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The Resources

The Onwards Medical Breakthrough

It may take guts to cure diabetes: Human GI cells retrained to produce insulin

“By switching off a single gene, scientists at Columbia University’s Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center have converted human gastrointestinal cells into insulin-producing cells, demonstrating in principle that a drug could retrain cells inside a person’s GI tract to produce insulin.”

“The new research was reported today in the online issue of the journal Nature Communications.”

“People have been talking about turning one cell into another for a long time, but until now we hadn’t gotten to the point of creating a fully functional insulin-producing cell by the manipulation of a single target,” said the study’s senior author, Domenico Accili, MD, the Russell Berrie Foundation Professor of Diabetes (in Medicine) at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC).”

“The finding raises the possibility that cells lost in type 1 diabetes may be more easily replaced through the reeducation of existing cells than through the transplantation of new cells created from embryonic or adult stem cells.”

Dr. Michael Belich is one of the doctors of Regenerative Medicine in Autologous Stem Cell Technology (ASCT) and the principal doctor of Integrative Medical Clinics in Brisbane, Australia. He is also with Anest Nicolaou who is the General Manager of ASCT. In ASCT, they optimize the patient’s health before and after surgery which follows the usual methods of extracting stem cells from the body including bone marrow, adipose tissue and blood(PRP). They can also create pluripotent and multi-potent stem cells that can be directed into different cell lines.

Discover more about the common types of diseases that they treat using stem cells and what protocols they follow to ensure safety among patients who seek for their help.

This interview was recorded at the World Medical Tourism Congress in Washington D.C. where John was a featured speaker in September 2014.

Thank you for listening. We would appreciate your comments and reviews

In This Episode, You’ll Learn

How Dr. Michael Belich started as a General Practitioner and a doctor of Emergency Medicine before he entered the field of Regenerative Medicine

Their unique method of producing a huge amount of stem cells

How they find their patients and how patients reach them to seek treatment

The most common things they treat using stem cells

How they address the safety issue when it comes to utilizing stem cell treatment to a patient

About the company’s accreditation

The new technological advances in regenerative medicine that they working on

How medical facilitators are interested in flying in patients into their facility

The potential negative side effects of stem cells

The importance of safety protocols, number of viable stem cells and the several conditions that can be helped by stem cells as part of the top three things to be asked by a patient when considering to receive stem cell treatments

The Resources

The Onwards Medical Breakthrough

“Researchers have made a giant leap towards the goal of ‘bio-printing’ transplantable tissues and organs for people affected by major diseases and trauma injuries, a new study reports.”

“Scientists from the Universities of Sydney, Harvard, Stanford and MIT have bio-printed artificial vascular networks mimicking the body’s circulatory system that are necessary for growing large complex tissues.”

Tucson Dunn is the CEO of Medicover Hospital located in Warsaw, Poland. He was a former US Army Veteran and has had 20 years of International Healthcare Experience. Medicover is a 180-bed private general hospital which provides treatments including maternity, orthopedics, general surgery, and cardiology. They offer a full-type service to their international patients at a very reasonable and transparent pricing.

Tucson chose Poland over the other countries he has been to because of the overall friendliness of the people and the safe and excellent medical care in the country. They also boast of quality hospitals, facilities and quality hospital staff as well. Discover more about why Poland is making waves in the medical tourism industry and why many international patients are traveling there to receive medical treatment.

This interview was recorded at the World Medical Tourism Congress in Washington D.C. where John was a featured speaker in September 2014.

Thank you for listening. We would appreciate your comments and reviews

The Resources

The Onwards Medical Breakthrough

Engineered red blood cells could carry precious therapeutic cargo

“Whitehead Institute scientists have genetically and enzymatically modified red blood cells to carry a range of valuable payloads—from drugs, to vaccines, to imaging agents—for delivery to specific sites throughout the body.”

“We wanted to create high-value red cells that do more than simply carry oxygen,” says Whitehead Founding Member Harvey Lodish, who collaborated with Whitehead Member Hidde Ploegh in this pursuit. “Here we’ve laid out the technology to make mouse and human red blood cells in culture that can express what we want and potentially be used for therapeutic or diagnostic purposes.”

Magdalena Rutkowska is a very experienced medical facilitator from Warsaw, Poland who runs her own company called Medical Travel Europe. She was hired by the Polish government to help promote Poland as a destination for medical tourism. She was appointed to become a representative of one of the company who is in the Consortium who are promoting in behalf of their Ministry of Economy Polish Medical Tourism which runs a 3-year program targeted at 7 market countries including United States, UK, Germany, Russia, Scandinavia among others. Find out more in this episode how Magdalena takes part in helping Poland attract more international patients to experience their high quality – low cost treatments in their well-equipped medical facilities.

This interview was recorded at the World Medical Tourism Congress in Washington D.C. where John was a featured speaker in September 2014.

Thank you for listening. We would appreciate your comments and reviews

In This Episode, You’ll Learn

About Magdalena Rutkowski and the company she owns and runs for almost 3 years

How they started to grow in and boast of different procedures

The perspective of success, mortality, complication and infection rates

Their program to promote Poland as a medical tourism destination

The common procedures that international patients go for in Poland

About the most common patients that visit their country to receive treatment

How Magdalena was hired by the Polish government to help promote the Polish medical tourism

The 3-year program that they run targeted at 7 market countries that will help promote Poland as medical destination

The price difference of procedures in Poland to US and other European countries

About the services they provide a patient after undergoing a certain procedure

The importance of doctor’s experience in terms of number of medical procedures performed, success rates of the hospitals, and prices and packages available when traveling abroad to receive medical treatments.

The Resources

The Onwards Medical Breakthrough

Biology made simpler with “clear” tissues

“A 3-D visualization of fluorescently-labeled brain cells within an intact brain tissue. Through the use of this novel whole-body clearing and staining method, researchers can make an organism’s tissues transparent—allowing them to look through the tissues of an organism for specific cells that have been labeled or stained.”

Bill Mansell is the Director of Admissions at Sanoviv Medical Institute located at Rosarito Beach, Baja California, Mexico. It is a fully licensed hospital with cutting edge facilities and they are accredited by the Institute for Functional Medicine. They offer a holistic and integrative approach to help treat a certain disease and elevate one’s immune system to make sure that the disease will not come back.

In this episode, Bill shared a story of a mother who is a lung cancer patient from Canada who underwent a series of medical treatments locally. At a certain point during her treatment, the doctor told her to set her affairs in order and plan for her funeral because there was nothing more they could do to treat her. She sought help online and found Sanoviv where she was placed under the Intensive Cancer Program which shrank her tumor by 80% in a very short time.

Find out in detail what the multi-pronged and aggressive approach Sanoviv uses to help treat patients with cancer and other diseases .

This interview was recorded at the World Medical Tourism Congress in Washington D.C. where John was a featured speaker in September 2014.

Thank you for listening. We would appreciate your comments and reviews

In This Episode, You’ll Learn

About how this patient underwent from a series of medical treatments such as radiation and chemotherapy

How at a certain point during her treatment, her doctor just told her that they cannot treat her and told her to plan for her funeral

How this patient sought help online and found Sanoviv Medical Institute

About the Intensive Cancer Program that the patient was placed in which shrank her tumor by 80%

About IPT or Insulin Potentiated Therapy

How they use IPT in conjunction with other medical procedures such as hyperthermia to treat their patients and help battle with cancer

The kinds of cancers that IPT focuses into

About the after care program they provide their guests

How Sanoviv continuously innovates and bring in new procedures as often as they can to help remedy other kinds of diseases

About their multi-pronged approach to treat the whole body, elevate the immune system, and build up the digestive system so that the cancer will not come back

About the cost of cancer treatment in their hospital and how it is comparatively 10-20% lower that of the other hospitals

The importance of a licensed facility. hospital accreditation, the opportunity to talk with a medical professional complete with credentials and the logistics well taken care of as part of Bill’s tips to patients who are considering to travel overseas to receive a medical treatment

The Resources

The Onwards Medical Breakthrough

New drug target can break down cancer’s barrier against treatment

“Cancer research UK scientists at Barts Cancer Institute have found that targeting a molecule in blood vessels can make cancer therapy significantly more effective, according to research published in Nature.”

“The team at Barts Cancer Institute, part of Queen Mary University of London, have found that a molecule, called focal adhesion kinase (FAK), signals the body to repair itself after chemotherapy or radiotherapy, which kill cancer cells by damaging DNA. When the researchers removed FAK from blood vessels that grew in melanoma or lungcancer models, both chemotherapy and radiation therapies were far more effective in killing the tumours.”

Dr. Chandy Abraham is the Medical Director of Health City Cayman Islands which recently opened its doors to local and international patients last April 2014. They are composed of medical professionals who provide high quality and world-class services and offers excellence in several surgical procedures. They are currently working on their accreditation by the Joint Commission International (JCI) and envisions to provide care in all specialties in their state-of-the-art hospital. Find out how Dr. Chandy Abraham and his team of professionals work on reducing costs to medical care and administer transparencies to pricing without losing the quality in their healthcare services.

Thank you for listening. We would appreciate your comments and reviews

In This Episode, You’ll Learn

About the state-of-the-art hospital, Health City, in Cayman Island, which recently opened last April 2014

About a patient from Cayman Islands who had a cardiac failure and was recommended to have a heart transplant in the US but was not accepted by the hospital there because what was available in his insurance was not adequate to perform the procedure

How this same patient returned to Cayman Islands who had a successful artificial heart transplant 5 weeks ago under the hands of the professionals from Health City

How they live up with their brand equity i.e afforable and cost-efficient healthcare

How they make the effort of drastically reducing the cost of medical care

About their highly experienced medical professionals and doctors who become much more proficient because of the volume of patients they are attending to becomes higher

About their state-of-the-art facilities with self-generating oxygen for patients

About their process efficiency that could help cut the cost down

How they provide a cost-transparent package to patients availing of their services

How they are in the process of working to be JCI accredited

The full concierge service they provide their patients

The cost savings in comparison to the commercial rates in the Eastern side of the US

Their after care services and procedures

The importance of physician’s experience, logistics of how a patient is going to be looked at, and establishing a good relationship with referring physician when considering taking medical treatments abroad

The Resources

The Onwards Medical Breakthrough

“Viruses designed to target and kill cancer cells could boost the effectiveness of chemotherapy to the arms and legs and help avoid amputation, a new study reports.”

“Scientists at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, tested the effectiveness of a genetically engineered version of the virus used to vaccinate against smallpox.”

“They found use of the virus alongside isolated limb perfusion chemotherapy – given directly to blood vessels supplying the affected arm or leg as an alternative to amputation – was more effective in rats than either treatment on its own.”

Dr. Ernesto Gutierrez is the President and Medical Director of World Stem Cells Clinic which is the stand-alone stem cell research center based in Cancun, Mexico where novel autologous stem cell therapeutic applications are being developed since 2010. They aim to provide advancements in the field of regenerative medicine, particularly stem cell therapy, to improve the patient’s quality and quantity of life. Dr. Gutierrez and his team are very much committed in moving a step further and improving their procedures and methods to address a wide variety of medical conditions. He is also passionate about training and developing medical professionals by allowing them to visit, learn and participate in World Stem Cells Clinic’s state-of-the-art laboratory and research facility.

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The Resources

The Onwards Medical Breakthrough

New gene discovered that stops the spread of deadly cancer

“Scientists at the Salk Institute have identified a gene responsible for stopping the movement of cancer from the lungs to other parts of the body, indicating a new way to fight one of the world’s deadliest cancers.”

“By identifying the cause of this metastasis—which often happens quickly in lung cancerand results in a bleak survival rate—Salk scientists are able to explain why some tumors are more prone to spreading than others. The newly discovered pathway, detailed today in Molecular Cell, may also help researchers understand and treat the spread of melanoma and cervical cancers.”

“Lung cancer, even when it’s discovered early, is often able to metastasize almost immediately and take hold throughout the body,” says Reuben J. Shaw, Salk professor of molecular and cell biology and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute early career scientist. “The reason behind why some tumors do that and others don’t has not been very well understood. Now, through this work, we are beginning to understand why some subsets of lung cancer are so invasive.”

Debra Simons is the Founder and CEO of Weight No More Consulting Ltd which started in 2011 and is based in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. Years back, Debra has always had concerns about her weight and had suffered from obesity wherein she acquired Type 2 diabetes. This incident led her to a decision to travel down to Mexico and receive a weight-loss surgery with one of the top bariatric surgeons in Tijuana – Dr. Jaime Ponce de Leon. Discover how this surgery has changed the life of Debra and how she used this first-hand experience to help change the lives of other individuals suffering from obesity.

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The Resources

The Onwards Medical Breakthrough

Toxoplasma gondii can stop cancer in its tracks as a vaccine

“Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) is a single-celled parasite that is happiest in a cat’s intestines, but it can live in any warm blooded animal. Found worldwide, T. gondii affects about one-third of the world’s population, 60 million of which are Americans. Most people have no symptoms, but some experience a flu-like illness. Those with suppressed immune systems, however, can develop a serious infection if they are unable to fend off T. gondii.”

“A healthy immune system responds vigorously to T. gondii in a manner that parallels how the immune system attacks a tumor.”

“We know biologically this parasite has figured out how to stimulate the exact immune responses you want to fight cancer,” said David J. Bzik, PhD, professor of Microbiology and Immunology, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth.”

“In response to T. gondii, the body produces natural killer cells and cytotoxic T cells. These cell types wage war against cancer cells. Cancer can shut down the body’s defensive mechanisms, but introducing T. gondii into a tumor environment can jump start the immune system.”

James Maskell is the Founder and CEO of Revive Primary Care and also the Founder of The Evolution of Medical Summit. The summit is basically a gathering of some of the world’s trusted leaders in healthcare who act as agents of change and have a specific set of vision for a more evolved healthcare system. He envisions that medicine will be seen differently by both patients and healthcare practitioners over the next decades to come and how it can affect us in general. He believes that it is important for people to become educated on how to maintain a healthy lifestyle and have a better understanding of the root causes of the epidemics of chronic diseases and what we can do to avoid it.

Thank you for listening. We would appreciate your comments and reviews

The Onwards Medical Breakthrough

“A set of rules discovered in the latest iOS 8 beta show Apple is already taking steps to ensure sensitive user health data harvested by the upcoming HealthKit API remains private, especially as it applies to firms wanting to harness the information for targeted ad campaigns.”

“Ahead of Apple’s expected iOS 8 launch in September, the company has restricted developers from selling or otherwise distributing sensitive data collected by the HealthKit application programming interface, which is set to debut as part of the new mobile operating system. The terms, buried in the latest iOS 8 beta’s licensing agreement, were highlighted by the Financial Timeson Thursday.”

James Maskell is the Founder and CEO of Revive Primary Care and also the Founder of The Evolution of Medical Summit. The summit is basically a gathering of some of the world’s trusted leaders in healthcare who act as agents of change and have a specific set of vision for a more evolved healthcare system. He envisions that medicine will be seen differently by both patients and healthcare practitioners over the next decades to come and how it can affect us in general. He believes that it is important for people to become educated on how to maintain a healthy lifestyle and have a better understanding of the root causes of the epidemics of chronic diseases and what we can do to avoid it.

Thank you for listening. We would appreciate your comments and reviews